There may be as many as 35 serial killers running loose in America, according to an FBI statistic quoted in the very poor beginning of the genuine shocker Copycat. The odds of encountering a serial killer are therefore 35 in 240 million; the odds of seeing a worthwhile movie about serial killers are somewhat slightly better, though, perhaps by as much as a few percentage points. Copycat beats the odds with a high-concept premise: a San Francisco killer is committing reenactments of the handiwork of well-known monsters such as Dahmer, Bundy, et al.

Well, it isn' Retired, reluctant and very damaged serial killer expert Helen Hudson (Sigourney Weaver) joins forces with detective M.J. Monahan (Holly Hunter), who is a little distracted by Weaver's interest in her partner (Dermot Mulroney, the eye-patch-wearing cinematographer from Living in Oblivion). The jailed Hannibal Lecter figure who helps the crew is played by the noted groaner Harry Connick Jr., who is actually not bad. (As KFJC's Robert Emmett said last Saturday, "Every moment he's acting is a moment he isn't singing.")

What could have been career maintenance for Hunter and Weaver ("career maintenance": Hollywoodism for "appearing in high-paying crap to survive until your next low-budget independent movie, such as The Piano or Death and the Maiden") turns out to be bright and even terrifying at points--an emailed Quick Time movie from the killer is the best scare I've had in a theater in a year. Weaver and Hunter score some fine scenes off of each other, and director Jon Amiel (The Singing Detective) lets Weaver mutter, "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" when figuring out that the killer's lack of a pattern is a pattern all its own.

Weaver is often heart-wrenching as a difficult woman; Hunter, "the wee inspector" as Weaver calls her, is so politely sarcastic and sweetly tough it's obvious she should have been the new James Bond. Perhaps the smoothest aspect of Copycat is its refusal to swoon over deadly force--Hunter, demonstrating the correct method of disarming an armed person, gives a nice lightly ironic inflection on the word "karma" as a reason why it's better not to kill suspects. Who says sensitivity has to be boring?

Copycat (R; 110 min.), directed by Jon Amiel, written by Ann Biderman and David Madsen, photographed by Laszlo Kovacs and starring Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter.